It is desirable to identify materials that can provide novel physical properties to medical devices or components thereof, such as catheters and balloons, and that can be integrated in to existing processing regimes. For instance balloons for medical devices such as angioplasty catheters, stent delivery catheters and the like are typically formed by a process of extruding a tube of thermoplastic polymer and then blowing the tube into a balloon at a temperature between Tg (higher temp Tg in case of block copolymers) and melt. Sometimes the blown balloons are held at a temperature above blowing temperature to increase crystallinity of the polymer and dimensional stability of the balloon. The present invention provides hybrid organic polymer-inorganic ceramic materials whose processing can be integrated into such a processing regime.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,646,155, there is described silanized polyolefins that have hydrolyzable silane moieties linked thereto by free radical reaction and that can be crosslinked by exposure to moisture and a condensation catalyst.
U.S. application Ser. No. 09/689,139, describes a medical device comprising a dilatation balloon formed from a crosslinked polymeric material, the crosslinked polymeric material comprises the reaction product of at least one polymer and at least one hydrolyzable silane having the following general structure:
where X is a monovalent non-hydrolyzable organic moiety comprising at least one functional group W which is reactive with said polymer with the proviso that an Si—C bond is present between Si and W, Y is a hydrolyzable group, Z is a monovalent hydrocarbon group, and m is an integer from 1 to 3. The hydrolyzable silane groups, Y of the silane are then activated with moisture to form a crosslinked polymeric material.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/094,638, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, describes organic-inorganic hybrid materials for use in medical devices that comprise an organic polymer and a sol-gel derived ceramic.